Exploratory contacts between Greece and Turkey will resume on Monday in Istanbul, after almost five years. Both sides will try to find points of convergence for possible future negotiations regarding the delimitation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, based on international law.

The historic agreement signed yesterday in Cairo on the EEZ between Greece and Egypt, was the culmination of years of talks and intense consultations between the two sides recently.

"I would like to make it clear that the term 'disputed' refers only to areas where more than one country asserts maritime claims," US Ambassador to Athens Geoffrey Pyatt said on Thursday in a statement to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on the sidelines of an event at the Alexandroupolis port for the reception and promotion of forces of the 101st US Airborne Brigade in the framework of the NATO exercise "Atlantic Resolve".